Interview with Isabell Long

Isabell Long: My name is Isabell Long, I’m 16, and I now live in England – after spending four years living in France. I have an extensive interest in technology and open-source software. I am a community coordinator for the freenode IRC network and a proud official Ubuntu community member, amongst other things.

PS: How did you get involved in Ubuntu?

IL: I think it was about two years ago when I made friends with someone who used Ubuntu. I then started using it on and off for about a year, then I got my own computer and got rid of Windows completely. I now have Ubuntu on both my computers, and no Windows in sight! With regard to my involvement in the Ubuntu community, however, I became an official Ubuntu community member in March this year. It has made me very happy!

PS: What do you do with Ubuntu?

IL: At present, I help Penelope with these interviews for Full Circle Magazine (yeah, it’s weird being “the other side” on this occasion!); I do British English and French translation on Launchpad; I help people with their problems in the Answers section of Launchpad; I am involved in Ubuntu UK and Ubuntu Women; and that’s about it for now! Not much really, eh?

PS: What would you like to o that you’re not already doing?

IL: Go to more events, and learn to triage bugs, in a sentence.

PS: I know you’re still a student; has working with Ubuntu helped this at all?

IL: Not really, in fact I prefer to keep my school life separate from what I do online outside of school. I do have a faint hope that my school (or any school!) will recognize Ubuntu, or even open-source software in general, but they are firmly stuck to Microsoft. It is a great shame. To properly answer the question, it has helped me personally by giving me a broader outlook, teaching me things that I would never have learned if I had just stayed within the confines of normal education (not that my education has been that normal having moved countries and having to learn French from scratch, but that’s a totally different story!), and I have got to know some amazing people thanks to all that I’m involved in online.

PS: How do you think the Ubuntu community could reach out more to get more younger women (so teenaged-ish) involved? What are we already doing right?

IL: Younger women? Maybe we shouldn’t focus so much on the female differentiation side of things, and just concentrate on getting more young people in general, either male or female involved? Ubuntu Youth could (and should) definitely be revived (I hang out in the IRC channel and not very much happens) and the “getting Ubuntu in schools” road could be continued upon, but no doubt people will agree with me here that that road is an extremely long and difficult one!

PS: When you’re not working on Ubuntu or schoolwork what are your interests?

IL: I love music as well as technology, and I have a passion to learn things. Learning to code is one of my goals, hence why I’m currently learning Python. I also love data, statistics, and making cool stuff out of freely available data and statistics, which also fuels my great desire to learn. Everything I do is great fun. You can find out even more about me in general at http://issyl0.co.uk/